"Oh. I thought Word and Excel came with Windows" and the serivce representative says "No, maam, you pay extra" and the customer says "OK".

Perhaps the reason customers thought they came with Windows is the last laptop they had came with Word & Excel starter editions, which were very capable versions of the most recent apps from the Office suite (not all features, but most) but had a sidebar of ads.

I really supported this move actually when Word/Excel Starter were announced, as MS Works was just laughably ancient, so even though a little cut down in features and with ads this was a very nice option for low-end OEM machines.

...but now that's killed as well. You instead get a trial for Office 365. Sigh...

There's one good thing about this. When Microsoft eventually decides to make MS Word have a game console UI where you write your documents by selecting letters with a game controller, and everyone bitches, the defenders won't be able to say "no one's forcing you to upgrade."

There's one good thing about this. When Microsoft eventually decides to make MS Word have a game console UI where you write your documents by selecting letters with a game controller, and everyone bitches, the defenders won't be able to say "no one's forcing you to upgrade."